Exposing the folly of wind and solar power

Washington apportions 50 to 100 times the amount of our tax dollars to wind and solar energy companies compared to subsidies received by coal- and gas-generated energy companies. Then Washington mandates that coal and gas energy producers (the cheap sources) produce less and less of our energy while wind and solar energy producers (the expensive sources) generate more and more. Predict the outcome.

● Raise electricity prices by 36 percent for households and 60 percent for industry;
● Cut national income (GDP) by $5.2 trillion between 2012 and 2035;
● Cut national income by $2,400 per year for a family of four;
● Reduce employment by more than 1,000,000 jobs; and
● Add more than $10,000 to a family of four’s share of the national debt by 2035.

Yep, solar and wind energy production have been receiving subsidies of more than $23 per megawatt-hour of electricity production for decades. Coal gets subsidies around 44 cents and natural gas around 25 cents per megawatt-hour.

The feds are pushing modes of electricity production that will increase the portion of our tax bills that go to subsidize wind and solar energy by 50 to 100 times. Just flat-out not too smart–and economically devastating.

What should happen in the energy arena?

All subsidies should be removed–nuclear too. How would the markets shake out? Like truly free markets must shake out. Consumers will buy what consumers get at the cheapest price–as long as the products are reliable and of high quality. Progressives can never be expected to grasp the concept. Reality seldom reaches through the fine-meshed ideology filter that produces a religious belief in human-caused global warming and dedication to “stopping” “climate change” that’s been occurring naturally for millions of years.

George Will nails it, sort of: "Liberalism preaches confident social engineering by the regulatory state. Conservatism urges government humility in the face of society’s creative complexity." Replace "Conservatism" with "Libertarianism" and Will's statement would be far truer.

Robert Brice: "...China's emissions jumped by 123% over the past decade and now exceed those of the U.S. by more than two billion tons per year. ...over the past decade, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions—about 6.1 billion tons per year—could have gone to zero and yet global emissions still would have gone up." So it seems that for many radical enviro-nuts, driving America back into the Stone Age is pretty much the goal.

Perhaps the most effect Don Boudreaux article ever: "[Barack Obama] knows no more about the economic matters upon which he pronounces than does a soap-opera actor portraying a physician know about cardiology or obstetrics."

Victor Davis Hanson: "After Obama, Americans will not be fooled for a generation or so into thinking that a Harvard PhD or Berkeley professor “really” knows that borrowing is prosperity, that gas should cost as much as it does in Europe, and that the more we pay millions to regulate, the more the vastly fewer who produce make us all prosperous."

Ron Paul’s foreign policy fallacies
Ron Paul is once again popping off from the hip, using false contentions as ammunition. Focus on fallacies 2, 3, and 4. Weinstein's fallacy #1 is actually a factual statement.